Most of us love a bogeyman - or, in these politically correct times, a bogey person. On the crudest level, this is somebody we can blame for everything that we consider to be bad in the world. More subtly, the bogey is not exactly the source of all evil, but a shadow figure nevertheless, who constellates an approach, a stage in history maybe, a weltanschauung.
For a lot of people here in Scotland, where the collective memory is long and unforgiving, a major bogey remains Superdominatrix and Oppressor of all north of the Border, Maggie Thatcher. While her dark spectre continues to hover over the banks of the Clyde and clank through the blackened corridors of Edinburgh Castle at the stroke of midnight, there is no chance of David Cameron and his buddies capturing more than a handful of Scottish votes. A complete exorcism is in order, still waiting to be performed.
For maverick disciple of Carl Jung and founder of archetypal psychology James Hillman, the bogeyman comes in the form of 17th century philosopher-mathematician Rene Descartes, along with his less famous contemporary Marin Mersenne. And with good reason. I have already written about how the Cartesian view divides the world into living subjects, complete with human egos, and the rest of the universe, dead and 'out there'. Wielding his trusty sword of mathematics, Descartes also conclusively proved that animals have no soul; imagine the status ascribed to plants, rocks and the like. Inutterably dead, pure lifelessness. Humans do possess soul and psyche, but in the true spirit of the mechanistic worldview, this needs to be located physically. Descartes finally and triumphantly concluded that the soul resides in the pineal gland.
It will not be lost on the reader that these findings of one of the fathers of modern rationalism are totally mad. But the demented ramblings of Descartes are very much in accord with the great project of secular, rational, single-waveband humanism that has moulded most of what we know as modern western civilisation. They have won the day.
Another emanation of Cartesian folly concerns the quest to discover what is truly 'real'. Following his mathematical approach, our bogeyman's conclusion was that it is my thoughts that show me to be conclusively 'me'. In contrast, sense experience especially is not to be trusted as proof - of anything, really. Remember this, when you next take a walk in the park, and see the last of the spring blossom fall to the ground, feel the wind on your skin, hear the birds as they go about their springtime business. In terms of reality, this is all highly suspect and dodgy stuff indeed.
The legacy of the Cartesian faith in mathematics as the means to probe and express reality, along with its concomitant suspicion of the validity of 'quality', can be seen in the mindset and mindspeak of our modern politicians, economists, and the rest. One such manifestation is the tendency to answer almost any given question in the language of that low-level form of maths, statistics. In the UK, members of the former Labour Government were especially prone to this particular form of sorcery. Policy and progress were expressed almost exclusively in percentage increases or decreases, numerical targets, specific dates, and so on. This IS reality as viewed through the lens of single-waveband scientific materialism. Which suits politicians and the like perfectly well since, contrary to the consensual view, figures and statistics do not demonstrate a single, objective, incontrovertible reality, but can be manipulated to prove and justify just about anything. To quote Mark Twain, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
A sickening example of the soul-strangling effects of the post-Cartesian statistical view of the world emerged shortly before the recent election, when I took a cursory look at the various parties' policies on 'the environment'. These in the main turned out to be percentage figures for reductions in carbon emissions by particular dates. Nothing about love, care, respect, kinship, enjoyment even. Trees, rocks, birds, dolphins, all abstracted into figures; the Soul of the World reduced to percentage points on a piece of paper. Which, once more, suits the dominators just fine, as they can continue their own power agenda sanctioned by the god of the day, statistics. In truth, the only political parties to demonstrate any sense of 'environment' as directly experienced (ie outside the Cartesian box of hell) were UKIP (discourage windfarms) and the BNP (undergrounding for power transmission cables through areas of natural beauty). Does this mean that the anarcho-shamanism of Pale Green Vortex will be metamorphosing into shamanic far-rightism? Probably not. But it does demonstrate the infernal vision, the poverty of soul and imagination, that informs mainstream politics in general. Children of Descartes, born into sickness and the nexus of non-reality, we salute you.
For a lot of people here in Scotland, where the collective memory is long and unforgiving, a major bogey remains Superdominatrix and Oppressor of all north of the Border, Maggie Thatcher. While her dark spectre continues to hover over the banks of the Clyde and clank through the blackened corridors of Edinburgh Castle at the stroke of midnight, there is no chance of David Cameron and his buddies capturing more than a handful of Scottish votes. A complete exorcism is in order, still waiting to be performed.
For maverick disciple of Carl Jung and founder of archetypal psychology James Hillman, the bogeyman comes in the form of 17th century philosopher-mathematician Rene Descartes, along with his less famous contemporary Marin Mersenne. And with good reason. I have already written about how the Cartesian view divides the world into living subjects, complete with human egos, and the rest of the universe, dead and 'out there'. Wielding his trusty sword of mathematics, Descartes also conclusively proved that animals have no soul; imagine the status ascribed to plants, rocks and the like. Inutterably dead, pure lifelessness. Humans do possess soul and psyche, but in the true spirit of the mechanistic worldview, this needs to be located physically. Descartes finally and triumphantly concluded that the soul resides in the pineal gland.
It will not be lost on the reader that these findings of one of the fathers of modern rationalism are totally mad. But the demented ramblings of Descartes are very much in accord with the great project of secular, rational, single-waveband humanism that has moulded most of what we know as modern western civilisation. They have won the day.
Another emanation of Cartesian folly concerns the quest to discover what is truly 'real'. Following his mathematical approach, our bogeyman's conclusion was that it is my thoughts that show me to be conclusively 'me'. In contrast, sense experience especially is not to be trusted as proof - of anything, really. Remember this, when you next take a walk in the park, and see the last of the spring blossom fall to the ground, feel the wind on your skin, hear the birds as they go about their springtime business. In terms of reality, this is all highly suspect and dodgy stuff indeed.
The legacy of the Cartesian faith in mathematics as the means to probe and express reality, along with its concomitant suspicion of the validity of 'quality', can be seen in the mindset and mindspeak of our modern politicians, economists, and the rest. One such manifestation is the tendency to answer almost any given question in the language of that low-level form of maths, statistics. In the UK, members of the former Labour Government were especially prone to this particular form of sorcery. Policy and progress were expressed almost exclusively in percentage increases or decreases, numerical targets, specific dates, and so on. This IS reality as viewed through the lens of single-waveband scientific materialism. Which suits politicians and the like perfectly well since, contrary to the consensual view, figures and statistics do not demonstrate a single, objective, incontrovertible reality, but can be manipulated to prove and justify just about anything. To quote Mark Twain, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
A sickening example of the soul-strangling effects of the post-Cartesian statistical view of the world emerged shortly before the recent election, when I took a cursory look at the various parties' policies on 'the environment'. These in the main turned out to be percentage figures for reductions in carbon emissions by particular dates. Nothing about love, care, respect, kinship, enjoyment even. Trees, rocks, birds, dolphins, all abstracted into figures; the Soul of the World reduced to percentage points on a piece of paper. Which, once more, suits the dominators just fine, as they can continue their own power agenda sanctioned by the god of the day, statistics. In truth, the only political parties to demonstrate any sense of 'environment' as directly experienced (ie outside the Cartesian box of hell) were UKIP (discourage windfarms) and the BNP (undergrounding for power transmission cables through areas of natural beauty). Does this mean that the anarcho-shamanism of Pale Green Vortex will be metamorphosing into shamanic far-rightism? Probably not. But it does demonstrate the infernal vision, the poverty of soul and imagination, that informs mainstream politics in general. Children of Descartes, born into sickness and the nexus of non-reality, we salute you.
